In the Fan, plans for a carriage house collide with a longtime alley garden

First there was a garage, topped with seven beehives and ringed by a garden. Then, after a storm brought walls and bees down, the garden took over, re-forming itself around a flagstone patio entered through a green arch and ringed with thousands of flowers.

Now, a new vision for the sprawling alleyway that lies between Hanover and Grove avenues and Mulberry and Robinson streets in the western part of the Fan has emerged: a carriage house that would form one part of a redevelopment of three apartment buildings that front on Grove. 

The design firm handling the project says the overall revamp would provide a wider range of rental opportunities in a city facing a housing crisis. But neighbors are dismayed by the plan’s intention to demolish the majority of the garden, which sits on the back of one of the apartment building lots purchased by local businessman Amar Al-Saadawi in 2023 but has been tended by Hanover Avenue resident Rick Bridgforth for 35 years.

“This is something that's beloved and there's a sense of ownership by the wider community,” said Councilor Katherine Jordan, whose 2nd District includes the neighborhood.

Bridgforth for his part says he wants his garden, which he started as a way to stop people from littering in the alleyway behind what is now McCormack’s Whisky Grill and which has grown “inch by inch” ever since, to remain. 

"It's a labor of love,” he said. “I'm not religious; I don't go to church. This is how I give back." 

The project is still early in the development process. The Johannas Design Group, the local firm handling its design for Al-Saadawi, submitted an application for a special use permit at the end of last year and is currently responding to comments on the plans from the city. Dave Johannas, the architect who is the company’s founder, said the project was unlikely to come before the Planning Commission before the end of the year. 

“We’ve met the neighbors, we’ve heard what they’ve said, and we’re looking at options,” he said. 

While everyone has said they are eager to find a compromise that will leave everyone happy — “There’s no pitchforks here,” said Johannas — neighbors are also weighing whether there could be a legal case for the garden’s preservation if negotiations aren’t successful. 

Among the options they are exploring are an adverse possession claim and a city ordinance that says that whenever any “piece, parcel or strip of land” has been used “as a public place” for five years, it becomes a public space open to public use.

Jordan, who is opposed to the garden’s elimination, said both those possibilities are on her office’s radar and that she has opened conversations with the city attorney’s office and the parks and recreation director, who she said “shares my enthusiasm to see its status protected and formalized.” 

"I think there are many different vehicles to see that happen, and I hope we can have that conversation and we get to the point where that is the reality," she said.  

Homes and garden

In describing their plans, the Johannas Design Group has emphasized that the proposed project would provide not only more modern rental apartments but a greater variety of units that could accommodate families as well as single residents. 

“The reason why they're affordable right now is just because they're unrenovated,” said Nathan March, an associate with the company. 

Under the proposal, three small apartment buildings at 2602, 2604 and 2606 Grove would be completely overhauled, with their units updated and the structures’ footprints expanded through both additions to the back and, on two buildings, the construction of a third story. 

All of the apartments are rentals, and Johannas said they will remain that way, although their sizes will change. Right now, the buildings hold 21 units, a mix of studios, one bedrooms and two bedrooms. The project would reconfigure the interiors to get rid of the studios and result in a mix of 22 one-, two-, and three-bedroom units.

March said the location is a particularly appropriate one to expand housing opportunities because the Robinson and Grove area is designated in the Richmond 300 master plan as a “micro node” where greater density occurs and is well connected to the broader transit system.

“We are on multiple bus lines right here,” he said. “The micro nodes are kind of promoting growth in those areas that are accessible by people that don't necessarily have a car, and looking at that is a part of this as well.” 

Melissa Savenko, chair of the Fan District Association’s Zoning Committee, said the FDA is “not pushing back on the density at all.” But the carriage house that would hold the 22nd unit, she said, is “a sticking point.” 

"It does not seem to me that that should be something that makes the project pencil or not pencil,” said Savenko. Getting rid of that unit or relocating it “would allow the garden to remain, which is the community's main concern." 

Bridgforth, a former hairdresser, florist and garden designer who founded the Jefferson Hotel’s salon and whose clientele have included names like actress Sissy Spacek, said his whole goal is to create beauty. Every year the garden changes as he works to make it “glimmerous”; not glamorous, he clarifies — “that’s a woman in makeup” — but a brilliant palette that “has a glimmer to each corner of it.” 

"It gets bigger every year and more and more people come to the alley just to see and show children how you can grow cucumbers in a tub,” he said. Other visitors have been drawn in by the benefits he holds at the garden for the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Greater Virginia, for which he raises thousands of dollars every year.

Over time, the garden’s defenders say it has become exactly the kind of space that Richmond 300 seeks to preserve, the kind of communal alleyway oasis that gives the Fan its characteristic charm. 

"They've talked a lot about place making behind the building,” said Savenko. “There's already a place, a public space that people love and care about." 

Now in his 70s, Bridgforth said he’s brought on a helper and sometimes drives down to the Lowe’s on Broad Street, where he picks up workers and pays them to give him a hand. 

For him, the garden remains a place where he can find balance and peace — and where he’s been delighted to find so many others can as well. 

"I'm not into arguing and all that business,” he said. While discussions about the space’s fate continue, Bridgforth said he intends to keep on as he always has. Tulip bulbs have already been ordered for planting next November.

"I really didn't know that so many people enjoyed it and came through here,” he said. “It woke me to the fact that I am making someone's day and creating beauty."

Contact Reporter Sarah Vogelsong at svogelsong@richmonder.org